Today lifestyle magazine Southern Living announced a collaboration with Smocked Auctions, a Dallas-based online designer and retailer of children’s clothing.

Smocked Auctions will design and distribute the magazine’s first licensed clothing line. As a team the two brands will debut six collections of Southern-inspired apparel for children between the ages of three months and six years old.

The first collection, The Monogram Collection, includes dresses, jon jons, bubbles and short sets for boys and girls. Each item will have a one-initial monogram in one of Southern Living’s trademarked fonts.

Five additional collections will be released in the near future.

Smocked Auctions was founded in 2010 by Amy Laws and Nicole Metzger Brewer, two mothers who decided to get into the business of f-commerce, a segment of e-commerce that operates through Facebook.

The company’s products are available for purchase through fixed-price Facebook auctions, daily Instagram sales and through their online storefront.

“We look forward to working with Southern Living on these upcoming collections, and we hope the Southern Living and Smocked Auctions’ customers will love the new line as much as we do,” Brewer said in a statement.

It’s no secret that small businesses have to engage customers on social media these days.

Facebook is just one of many social media tools that entrepreneurs use to connect and engage with their audiences. In Texas, for instance, Facebook has facilitated 132 million connections between local businesses and people.

In recent years, Facebook has been promoting its paid advertising and tools for small businesses. Part of the efforts include free workshops for entrepreneurs on how to use the world’s largest social network.

Facebook’s Small Business Roadshow stopped today in Plano, where several dozen entrepreneurs listened to tips on creating a Facebook page for their businesses as well as targeting their message. Facebook also made a pitch for its paid advertising programs as a way for small businesses to increase sales and broaden their reach.

Hair stylist Sarah Soto, who owns Tonic Beauty Bar at the Salons at Bella Suites in Garland, said her business Facebook page has gotten her new business and referrals. She has yet to use any of Facebook’s paid advertising tools, such as promoting a post.

Gail Walker and Shenyesa Henry created a Facebook page for their new business even before it opened. Called Cuts on Trucks, it is a hair salon on a converted recreational vehicle.

The Facebook page, Walker said, has allowed them to create awareness and start connecting with potential customers. They will go on the road beginning in mid-June.

Here are some tips, courtesy of Facebook:

– Post relevant and timely content once or twice a week. Pictures and videos work well.

Dallas Mav’s owner Mark Cuban has a thought or two on what happened to the Facebook IPO and what it means for the market (broad and tech) going forward.

He’s no idle observer. Cuban said he bought 150,000 shares of Facebook, all for less than the $38 strike price.

According to Cuban’s blogmaverick.com, he bought 50,000 shares at $33 a share, 50,000 shares at $31.97 and 50,000 shares at “around $32.50.” Near close of business today, the stock was trading at $32.25 a share.

“Its a trade, not an investment,” he said. “Kind of like buying a Mickey Mantle, a Hank Aaron and a Barry Bonds Rookie Card knowing there is a card show in town next week”.

A cool Wall Street Journal chart lets you track Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth in real time. The sobbing sound you hear is all the girls who turned him down. The moaning is from their parents.

Here’s a link to the story and some excerpts:
Last April, Gamestop Corp. opened a store on Facebook to generate sales among the 3.5 million-plus customers who’d declared themselves “fans” of the video game retailer. Six months later, the store was quietly shuttered.

Gamestop has company. Over the past year, Gap Inc., J.C. Penney Co. and Nordstrom Inc. have all opened and closed storefronts on Facebook Inc.’s social networking site.

Facebook, which this month filed for an initial public offering, has sought to be a top shopping destination for its 845 million members. The stores’ quick failure shows that the Menlo Park, California-based social network doesn’t drive commerce and casts doubt on its value for retailers, said Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“There was a lot of anticipation that Facebook would turn into a new destination, a store, a place where people would shop,” Mulpuru said in a telephone interview. “But it was like trying to sell stuff to people while they’re hanging out with their friends at the bar.”

A year ago, investors hailed so-called F-commerce as the next big thing, speculating that the company had potential to threaten Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and PayPal Inc. Facebook is the most- visited website in the world. Some people thought that persuading visitors to shop would be easy, Mulpuru said.

Has the One Million Moms group given up on its battle with J.C. Penney over the retailer’s hiring of gay comedian Ellen DeGeneres?

The group’s Facebook page posting that had asked moms to boycott the Plano-based retailer due to its choice of a spokesperson has been removed.

A sampling of almost 400 of the 2,000 comments attached to the post by Wednesday night were overwhelming in support of Penney. The post only had 189 thumbs-up “Likes,” a Facebook symbol of support.

By Thursday the post and comments had been taken down. But the battle is continuing on its website, onemillionmoms.com, where the group suggests that calls to J.C. Penney store managers are in order.

The instructions read: “Since J.C. Penney won’t listen to us nationally, it is time we let them hear from us locally!”

It’s been 10 days since Penney said it had hired DeGeneres. Penney isn’t budging.

On Wednesday, DeGeneres used her own afternoon talk show to break her silence over the flack she had created. She definitely had some fun with it, noting she has more than 9 million Facebook friends while One Million Moms is rounding up from only 40,000 members listed on its Facebook page.